CHAPTER XXIX. Be Hopeful

Be Hopeful

Life properly belongs to the hopeful. It has been said that a pessimist is one who has the choice of two evils and takes them both. A discouraged man is defeated before he begins. When a boy, Peter Cooper had few school privileges. His father being a hatter, he was set to work pulling the hair from rabbit skins to obtain material with which to make hats. His health was poor and though having but “half a chance,” at seventeen he resolved to work for himself. At this time he was living at Peekskill. Thence he went to New York, where he apprenticed himself to a carriage-maker for five years for board and two dollars a month. He had neither time nor money for what the world calls pleasure, but he had the pleasure of hope. While working for fifty cents a week he resolved: “If ever I get rich I will build a place where the poor boys and girls of New York may have an education free.” He then entered the grocery trade and made some money; then a glue factory, where he became rich. In 1854 the object of his hope was commenced and finished at a cost of $800,000. “The great object that I desire to accomplish,” said he, “by the erection of this institution is to open the avenues of scientific knowledge to the youth of our city and country, and so unfold the volume of nature that the youth may see the beauties of creation, enjoy its blessings and learn to love the Author from whom cometh every good and perfect gift.” It is a source of consolation to know that, in whatever circumstance a boy may be placed, there is, amidst the desolate and cheerless scenes a harbinger of comfort, a helm to keep his course in the right channel, and a north star on which to fix his eyes, namely, hope. Without it, the world would be desert and man the most wretched of all God’s creatures. With it, aspiration clings to some tangible reality as the ivy’s tendril to the oak. There may be failures, but hope believes in final success. It whispers, “nothing is impossible;” smiles serenely on the struggling, sustains the aspiring and cheers with a vivacity of assurance that portends success. As such it lit the lantern upon the ship of Columbus, waved the torch before Bacon as he descended into Nature’s laboratory, supported the steps of Newton when he wandered into the dim solitude of unknown worlds, sprinkled the canvas of Titian with purple lines of summer, sent Watts’ engine snorting along the rails and Fulton’s steamboat puffing up the Hudson.

WHAT IS HOPE?

Hope is a beautiful word. Its definition makes every bosom bound and burn. It is called “Music to the ear of the young;” “health to the sick;” “the birthright of all;” “the soul’s most effective impulse,” and a “glorious expectation.” To the warrior it is the victor’s wreath, amulet and medal of honor. To the student it means the bench, platform, pulpit, or some other exalted position. To the Christian it means more. So intimately is it associated with practical godliness that religion is called “A hope through grace,” (2 Thess. 2:16) “a glorious hope,” “a better hope,” (Heb. 7:19) “a blessed hope” and “a lively hope.” (1 Peter 1:3). The Christian’s God is named the “God of Hope,” Jesus Christ, “Our Hope,” (1 Tim. 1:1) and His finished work “the hope set before us in the Gospel.”

General Grant once said to a personal friend that his habit of day-dreaming, a kind of large and persistent hoping, had never left him. In his earlier life he had resigned from the army and things had been going steadily against him. He was working on a farm near St. Louis, from which he used to carry wood to the city for sale, and then ride back in the empty cart. It was a favorite sort of hoping dream of his, as he rode homeward, to think of himself with Mrs. Grant making a tour of Europe, and of himself as an officer in the army. Foolish enough such hoping seemed for a poor farmer jogging homeward in the evening. But that hope was inspiration to him, and at last the reality of it all burst the bounds of his most daring dreaming. Hoping thus, even in Grant’s circumstances, was vastly better than a weak bewailing of his hard and unpromising plight. It is a noteworthy fact that all through the war, everyone of Grant’s utterances and dispatches had in it this note of hope. There could not be found a shadow of a suggestion of despair or of ultimate defeat. Hope, to him, as to thousands, was a stimulating factor.

WHAT HOPE IS LIKENED TO.

Like every other good thing hope has many symbols. Watson said: “Hope is like the cork to the net, which keeps the soul from sinking in despair.” “It is to man,” said Felthan, “as a bladder to a learning swimmer, it keeps him from sinking in the bosom of the waves and by that help he may attain the exercise.” “Hope,” says Howe, “is the engine that moves the world and keeps the intelligent part of it in action everywhere.” But in the Scriptures it is symbolized as an anchor: “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul.”

When David was sad he said to himself: “Hope thou in God.” What volumes of thought these words contain. “Hope” and “God” and the word “thou” linking them together. “Hope thou in God.” That boy who places his trust in God is never hopeless. Airy fancies may seek to allure him, treacherous vices may endeavor to beguile him, but hope flits eternal around the human head and breast, and hangs its rainbow on the blackest cloud in all the chaste sparklings of an angel from the realms of light. To give up hope is to give up the beauty of life. It was only when Paradise was lost that Milton makes Satan exclaim: “Then farewell hope,” and immediately thereafter, as always the case, he adds: “Evil, be thou my good.”

THE CERTAINTY OF THIS HOPE.

Paul said in regard to hope, “Sure and steadfast.” Like the anchor whose flukes get fast beneath the moveless rocks, holding the vessel to its moorings in spite of the storm, so hope whispers these magic words of joy, when waves of calamity and sorrow would engulf in the vortex of despair, “sure and steadfast.” Why? Because the cable that holds the anchor hope is faith and the rock that holds the flukes of the anchor is Christ, and the reason we believe it is sure, is because the Word of God says so, for His Word is “Yea and amen to him that believeth.” We believe because millions have tested and proved it.

Now anchors are not so much needed in mid-ocean, for the water is deep, the rocks far down, and the reefs distant, so that with a storm before or behind, the ocean craft could smile and say, “I can race as fast as you can drive.” It is when nearing the coast that extra care is taken and the anchor held in readiness, for should a storm arise it might dash the ship upon the rocks, run it upon a reef or strand it upon the shore. Nor is the anchor of hope so much needed in the mid-ocean of prosperity, peace and the fulness of God’s love as it is near the shore when we start in the Christian life and labor.

ROCKS OF SCEPTICISM.

Without this sure anchor many a boy has drifted on the rock of scepticism. When the little “squall” of laughter and “windy” arguments were brought to bear against them, they forgot their promises and gradually drifted upon this disastrous rock. No boy’s anchor is secure who reads literature saturated with atheistical sentiments or keeps the company of infidel characters. Heinrich Heine the sceptic was proof of this. One day a friend called to see him, when suffering torments from a disease of the spine. He said: “If I could only walk on crutches, do you know where I would go? Straight to church.” “You jest,” the friend said. “No, no, straight to the church,” replied the former scoffer; “my friend, believe me, it is Heinrich Heine who tells you. After having reflected on it for years, and after having reconsidered and maturely weighed what has been written on this subject by men of all sorts, believe me, I have reached a conclusion that there is a God who judges our conduct, and that after this life there is another, when the good will be rewarded and the wicked punished. There are fools, who, having passed their lives in scepticism and mistake, and denied God in their words and acts, have not courage to own that they are wholly deceived. As for me,” he said sadly and almost hopelessly, “I feel compelled to declare that it is a cursed falsehood which long made me blind. Only at present I see clearly; and any man who knows me must confess that it is not because my faculties have become weak, for never was my mind more clear and strong than it is this moment.”

Without this sure and steadfast anchor many boys have drifted upon the reefs of temptation. An unanchored ship may lie on the waters as calmly and beautifully as in a painted picture, but almost before one realizes, the undercurrent carries it away, and a sudden jar, a terrible crash informs the captain it has stranded on a reef or struck a rock. So, too, hundreds of boys have been ruined in like manner, not by the gales of adversity, or strong winds of persecution, but by the undercurrents of strong temptations.

What Paul said of those who live by faith may be said of all boys. “These were tempted.” Temptations are with kings in their castles and peasants in the field. “They come,” says one, “of plenty, they are born of success and they are born of defeat.” They are not in themselves sins, but temptations become sin when the tempted one welcomes and yields to them. Temptations resemble the rocks which rest their jagged sides above the waves at low water. No vessel dare come near them. But after a while the tide comes sweeping into the bay and buries the rocks under a flood of water so that the largest ships as well as the lightest skiffs may ride in safety above their teeth of death. We cannot hinder temptation from coming to us, but we can refuse to heed it. How?

A NOVEL EXPERIMENT.

A story is told of a man who once asked an Eastern king if he could tell him how to avoid temptation. The king advised the man to take a vessel brimful of oil and carry it through the streets of the city without spilling a drop. “If one drop is spilt, your head shall be cut off.” Two executioners were ordered with drawn swords to walk behind the man, and carry out his orders. There happened to be a fair going on in the town, and the streets were crowded with people. However, the man was very careful, and he returned to the King without having spilled one drop of oil. Then the king asked: “Did you see anyone whilst you were walking through the streets?” “No, I was thinking only of the oil, I noticed nothing else.” “Then,” said the king, “you may know how to avoid temptation. Fix your mind firmly on God as you fixed it on that vessel of oil.”

Thank God, this hope in Christ “is sure and steadfast.” You may be struck “all aback,” or, as Theodore Cuyler said, “may be stripped of many a topsail which ambition has hoisted or many a spar of prosperity; you may be obliged to throw out much of your lading into the sea; but if Jesus Christ is in your soul, you cannot suffer wreck.” The anchor “sure and steadfast” will hold you, under every circumstance, in every storm, and in every trial.

A GRECIAN FABLE.

There is a fable told by Homer of a Grecian boy who was pursued by a giant, whose breath was fire and in whose hand was a huge club. Two invisible beings assisted the pursued lad. One took his hand and lifted him forward, the other, casting an invisible cord over him, flew before him until his speed was doubled and the palace gates gave shelter. This is a beautiful representation of God’s gentle rule over us. O, my boy, when the enemy of your soul seeks to enslave or allure you into a trap, some invisible power will aid you to avoid and escape him. When all appears dark and gloomy, looking up, one sees a beautiful sky and hears the lark break forth in song. When discouraged and bowed down with grief he needs but listen to hear the Saviour whispering, “Hope on, hope continually, hope thou in God for ‘the Lord will be the hope of His people.’” And looking up he then can say:

“O Hope of every contrite heart! O Joy of all the meek! To those who ask, how kind Thou art! How good, to those who seek!”